It is known to obtain ultrasound images of the breast using a probe placed against the breast. Stereotactic biopsy techniques are done in a similar fashion; with a patient lying prone, with the breast hanging through a hole in the table. All these methods have shortcomings related to the flaccid nature of the breast which leads to difficulty in manipulating and orienting the organ. Additionally, some of these methods are very uncomfortable for the patient, the pain often associated with the forceful compression of the breast between plates in mammography being a prime example.
US 2003/0233110A1 (Jesseph) published Dec. 18, 2003 and entitled “Device and method for improved diagnosis and treatment of cancer” discloses a fixation device, which fixes a breast in distended, stable position using negative pressure, and minimizes or halts lymphatic flow from the breast. An image-guided system allows accurate and bloodless access to breast tissue guided by MRI or CT. Linear and rotary configurations are disclosed. The device employs a cup-like chamber that surrounds the breast and has top and bottom ends that are both open as well as a fluid evacuation duct for allowing the chamber to be secured to the breast by applying suction to the top end. Application of suction causes the breast to elongate and fill the internal volume of the chamber, whereupon it may be placed in an imaging or interventional device such as an MRI coil, ultrasound device, CT scanner, and the like.
It is clear that the imaging or interventional device is a separate unit from the fixation device, which serves only to contain and hold the breast in optimum position for subsequent scanning by a discrete scanning unit.
WO03103500A1 (Duck et al.) published Dec. 18, 2003 and entitled “Ultrasonic imaging device” discloses a device for use in the imaging of breast tissue comprising a mounting structure capable of holding an ultrasound transducer having an effective transmission face and a tissue moulding element for receiving and surrounding the breast tissue. The mounting structure is movable relative to the surface of the breast tissue placed into the tissue moulding element, so that on rotation of the mounting structure, the ultrasound transducer attached thereto encircles the breast substantially parallel to a surface of the breast.
In such an arrangement the scan head typically rotates together with the housing. Consequently, during use there is a tendency for the breast to move together with the rotating housing. Such movement is minimized by introducing oil between the breast and the inner surface of the housing, but even slight tendency for the breast to rotate causes inaccuracies in the scanned image.
Moreover, the fact that the housing moves relative to the breast militates against securing the breast within the housing. It is stated that the tissue moulding element may be stationary relative to the breast. It is also stated that negative pressure may be applied to the tissue moulding element so as to enhance the moulding of the breast placed therein. However, there appears to be no teaching in WO03103500A1 as to how the breast may be fixed within the tissue moulding element such that the mounting structure may move unimpeded around the tissue moulding element. To the contrary, the sole figure in WO03103500A1 shows a recess or window within the tissue moulding element that accommodates the ultrasonic transducer, such that the ultrasonic transducer is constrained to rotate with the tissue moulding element. Moreover, a single motor is shown that rotates the two together, there being no provision to rotate the ultrasonic transducer independent of the tissue moulding element. Additionally, the tissue moulding element is shown as a conical housing that is supported on one side by a bracket fixed to the same support surface to which the motor is rotatably coupled and which has on an opposite side the recess or window for accommodating the ultrasonic transducer. It thus emerges that even if the recess or window were absent and the ultrasonic transducer were capable of rotation independent of the tissue moulding element, the bracket would get in the way of the ultrasonic transducer thus preventing unimpeded rotation thereof.